


can i be close to you

by CrazyPrepared (writerofberk)



Category: Trolls (Movies 2016 2020)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Light Angst, Mild Language, and as always we are ignoring The Beat Goes On and Trolls World Tour!!, anyways!!! this is bad!!! happy valentine's day, it is officially the sequel to Pretty Words, there is one (1) OC to kickstart the plot but that's it, this was supposed to be a SECRET sequel to Pretty Words but everybody figured it out so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29445054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerofberk/pseuds/CrazyPrepared
Summary: "And Branch is really good with this kind of stuff! Remember?" Bridget glances pointedly over at Branch.Oh.Oh, no.Bridget is talking about The Poem.
Relationships: Branch/Queen Poppy (Trolls)
Comments: 42
Kudos: 35





	can i be close to you

" _Ooh, I wanna dance with somebody! Wanna feel the heat with somebody!"_

Out under the flashing rainbow lights of the Bergentown roller rink, with the music blaring loud, Poppy spins and spins and spins in her skates, her hands tossed up over her head, her smile brighter than all the stars in the sky outside, her lipstick smeared into a faint pink smudge on her mouth, her hundred thousand bracelets jingling and jangling on her wrists, and her brand-new butter-yellow dress flaring out around her legs, so she looks like a sunbeam fallen to earth, bright and golden and _beautiful_ , lighting up the whole world and _not even knowing_ —

" _Yeah, I wanna dance with somebody_!"

She whirls around, all of a sudden, out of the blue, to grab Branch's hand up in hers—and he has to pretend his heart isn't beating out of his chest at the barest brush of her fingers on his, he has to pretend every single second of her skin on his skin doesn't feel like actual lightning in his veins—

" _With somebody who loves me!"_

—and, out under the flashing rainbow lights of the Bergentown roller rink, Poppy pulls Branch into the dance with her and, clumsy as he is in his skates, it's all he can do just to blindly follow her lead, to just go wherever she wants to take him, it's all he can do to spin and spin and spin with her until he's breathless, and dizzy, and smiling so hard it _hurts_ , so close to her that he can smell her favorite strawberry perfume, smell her cinnamon bubblegum in her mouth, and he's dizzy with that, too, with the scent of her and the _feel_ of her pressed against him, skin on skin on skin—

"Poppy! Branch!" Bridget still talks in that light little whisper, soft and sweet and skittish as all hell, but when she smiles, it's bright and full and real. "There you are!" She pushes a lock of hair lightly behind her ear—it looks longer now that she wears it loose, down around her freckled face, running in a river all the way to her shoulders, and it looks good on her, or maybe it's just that she looks so _happy_ now—before she tips her head at the Bergen beside her, a skinny, lanky, string-bean of a thing, with several big, white warts scattered all over his dull purple cheeks. Probably no more than fourteen or fifteen, if Branch had to make a guess.

"This is the troll I was telling you about," Bridget says to the Bergen. "His name is Branch, and he's really good, okay? Promise. Just ask him. He'll help you out."

Branch has absolutely no idea what the hell is going on, but Poppy elbows him sharply in the ribs from where she still stands half a step behind him, and he has enough sense left to lift a hand and offer a quick, awkward wave.

"What—?" He flicks a glance from Bridget to the new Bergen and back again. "What's going on?"

The new Bergen immediately ducks his head to stare down at the dirty floor, twisting his hands together and a deep violet flush creeping up into his warty face.

"Oh, come on, Andre," Bridget says, sweet and patient like she always is. "You can do it! Just ask! He'll help you! Promise!"

"Yeah!" Poppy bounces forward to stand beside Branch, and how the hell does she do that _in roller_ _skates_ without falling over? "We'll help ya, Andre! No worries!"

Andre finally opens his mouth and a low, hoarse croak spills out. "I—I just—" Yeah. Definitely fourteen. That's puberty if Branch ever heard it. "Okay, so there's—" he swallows so hard that his throat bobs lightly, "—there's this girl, a-and I want to—I want to tell her—"

"That you _like_ her!" Poppy bursts out. "Oh, my gosh! That's so sweet!" She claps a hand to her heart and spins to look at Branch, her eyes wide and sparkling in her flushed, freckled face, her smile big and bright. "We gotta help him, Branch! For _love_!"

Poor Andre looks like he's never wanted to disappear so badly in his entire life.

"Uh, okay," Branch says, as nicely as he can, because he really _does_ feel sorry for the guy, "I—I'm really _not_ the best troll for this kind of thing. Poppy is actually the one who—"

" _Yes_!" Poppy cuts him off with a squeal so high, it could shatter the glass doors over on the far wall. "Yes! Let's do this! Oh, my gosh, let's go, Branch, we'll get the Pack together, give him a makeover, just like we did for Bridget when we—!"

"No, no," Bridget says, gently, "no, Poppy, he doesn't want all that. He just wants someone to—to help him figure out what to _say_ , you know? And Branch is really good with that stuff! Remember?" She glances pointedly at him.

Oh.

Oh, _no_.

Bridget is talking about The Poem.

Bridget is talking about that stupid, silly, _ridiculous_ little verse Branch just spouted off, in a blind panic, because no one else was doing anything, and no one else was saying anything, and she was crashing and burning and Poppy was losing her one chance to save Creek and he didn't know what to _do_ , and that stupid, silly, ridiculous little verse he scribbled down when he was seventeen popped into his head, and he just—he just _said_ it.

Bridget is talking about _that_.

"Uh," he says, and now _he's_ never wanted to disappear so badly in his entire life, "I—I'm not _actually_ —I-I just made that up on the spot, i-it was a one-time thing, I probably couldn't do it _again_ —"

"But you _gotta_!" Poppy says. "It's true love, Branch! How can you say no to _true love_?"

"True love?" Branch doesn't scoff, but damn if he doesn't come pretty close. "I doubt it. He's fourteen."

" _Fifteen_ ," Andre says haughtily.

"That's not any better," Branch tells him.

" _Please_ , Branch!" Bridget clasps her hands and leans down to look him full in the face. "Please? Andre really, really needs your help. Just like I did! You helped me be _happy_! Can't you do the same for him?"

_Damn it._

That is the textbook definition of a _low blow_ , and Bridget _knows_ it, he can tell just from the look on her face, but he clenches his jaw and clenches his fists and mutters, "Okay, _fine_."

Barely a month out of the bunker—barely a month with blue skin—and he's already going soft. It's pathetic.

"Oh, yeah!" Poppy pumps a fist in the air. "You're the _man_ , Branch! Knew you wouldn't let a good Bergen down!"

Bridget's nervous, freckled face softens into a wide smile. "Thank you!"

Even Andre, all wide eyes and white warts and violet blush, stammers out a small, squeaky _thanks_ , but Branch waves him off—okay, look, this really is not going to be _that_ bad, he'll just pick out a stupid poem and shove it at Andre and it's really not going to be that bad, he can do this, no big deal, it's no big deal, and—

—and everybody just stands there and stares at him. Literally no one moves.

"W-Wait," Branch says. His mouth feels too dry all of a sudden. " _Now_?" In front of _Poppy_?

"Well, yeah?" Andre licks his lips nervously. "I—I'm going to—" he shuffles his enormous feet awkwardly, "—I'm going to tell her today. No backing out this time."

"Uh," Branch says, because his brain will not stop screaming at him to _not_ do this in front of Poppy, _don't do this in front of Poppy, do not do this in front of Poppy, haven't you humiliated yourself enough to last the rest of your life by now_ —? "Y-Yeah," he says, finally. "Okay."

"Yeah," Andre nods almost to himself, "yeah, I'm ready, just—just tell me what to say? Like you did with—?" He tilts his head at Bridget.

"Yeah," Branch says, as clearly as he can—which isn't all that clearly because he could swear his tongue is glued to the roof of his mouth. "Yeah, okay."

Everybody stares at him some more.

Okay.

Okay, _fine_.

He can do this. He'll have to go home and lock himself in his bunker until everybody in the whole world forgets his entire existence, but he can do this, and it'll be fine, it's fine, it's absolutely fine, he just wants to literally die. "Okay," he says, "okay, um—" he thinks about Poppy, spinning and spinning and spinning under the flashing rainbow lights, her brand-new, butter-yellow dress flaring out around her legs—

"Y-You're like—" he stammers, but Andre is looking at him and Bridget is looking at him and _Poppy is looking at him_ , and not to be dramatic, but if the earth would just open up and swallow him down right about now, that would be fantastic. "Y-You're like a sunbeam, fallen to earth—bright and golden and beautiful. Lighting up the entire world, and you don't even know."

There is a single second of ringing silence.

 _Please_ just let the earth open up and swallow him, _please_.

"Oh, wow," Bridget says softly. "That was so pretty, Branch!" She turns to smile at Andre. "Told you he's good with this stuff!"

Branch tries like hell to just _not_ look at Poppy, but _she's staring at him_ , and he can _feel_ it, he can _feel_ her eyes on him, and he can't just _not_ look at her, he can't just—so he does, he finally breaks and looks over at her, a quick, split-second glance, all of half a heartbeat, and under the flashing rainbow lights of the rink, he can see her mouth has dropped open and her freckled cheeks look just a little too pink—

"Wasn't that so _great_ , Poppy?" Bridget beams.

"Uh," Poppy blinks, and the pink in her face seems to get pinker, and she looks away from Branch like she's been burned, "y-yeah! Yeah! Great! So great! So so so great! So pretty! Real pretty! Yep!"

Andre flashes Branch a small, shy smile full of crooked yellow teeth and a quick, quiet _thank you_ before he turns around and skates off, deeper and deeper into the crowded rink, to find his girl.

"Thanks, Branch," Bridget says again, with that bright, full, real smile that lights up her whole face. "Thanks for doing that. I really owe you one—"

"Y-Yeah, whatever," Branch cuts her off, because the quicker everybody just shuts the hell up about this, the better. "Just—just forget it. Seriously." _Forget this was a thing that happened and forget the last time was a thing that happened, too, forget all the silly, sappy poetry I've ever been stupid enough to say out loud, and hey, if it's not too much to ask, I'd really love it if you could also just forget the fact that I exist, too. That would be great. Thanks so much._

Bridget tosses him one last smile and a quick wave before she finally skates off, too, and he's left alone with Poppy—which is fine, _completely fine_ , look, this is all completely and totally fine, everything's fine, it's just that he wants to literally die again, and if only there was a decent cliff around, he'd already be over the edge right now—

"Soo—" Poppy laughs, a little too loud, and elbows him in the ribs again, "—nice to know you still got that pretty way with words. Doesn't look like a one-time thing after all, buddy!"

And Branch _knows_ it's coming—he knows she's going to say something about it, he knows she's not just going to drop it like Bridget did, he knows she's not going to forget about this, and she's _definitely_ not going to ever let _him_ forget about this, and he knows that because she's _Poppy_ , and when does she ever let him off easy—but that doesn't mean he's not a hundred thousand kinds of completely humiliated when it finally leaves her mouth.

"I—I don't—" and he knows he should brush her off—roll his eyes, push out a quick _okay, fine, whatever,_ because he knows half the fun for her is the way he stutters and stammers and stumbles over his words, forgets what he's going to say, the way his cheeks burn white-hot in a furious blue blush, he knows half the fun for her is just seeing that she's effectively flustered the living hell out of him—but he _can't_ play it cool when she's talking about _this_. "I—I told you, I just—I just made it up on the spot. Just like with Bridget. It—it didn't mean anything, I— _I_ didn't mean anything, when I said it, I just—"

But Poppy arches her brows at him, and the corners of her mouth curve up in a small, infuriating smirk that he thinks he would cut off his right hand just to kiss. "You know, call it a hunch, but I think this amazing, beautiful mystery troll you're so head over heels in love with—"

" _What_?!" Branch yelps, and okay, yeah, it's official, he's finally barreled right on past _completely humiliated_ to _irreversibly mortified_.

"—might like it a little better if you just _told_ them how you feel," Poppy says, and oh, this is bad, she actually looks _serious_ about this, "instead of writing about them and pretending you're not."

Okay, so, _now_ is obviously the moment to brush her off—to roll his eyes, to say _okay, fine, whatever_ —but he just can't push the words past his pounding and pounding and pounding heart. "I—I'm _not_ —" he sputters, but her mouth pulls up in that smirk again, and he knows she's not going to believe a damn word he says, and everything is awful, and _where_ is a decent cliff when he really needs it, "—I'm not—I don't—there's no 'mystery troll'! I-I'm not in love with—!"

"Look, I'm just sayin'!" Poppy holds her hands up and out in front of him, like he's some kind of mindless, bloodthirsty beast she has to soothe and shush before he charges at her. "I know you're all 'worst-case scenario' all the time, but sometimes you just gotta think _best_ -case scenario! Like! Maybe your mystery troll really likes you, too! Ever think of that?" She plunks herself down on the edge of the table, swinging her legs out over the miles and miles of empty air below her, and tips her head back to grin up at him. Her flower crown slips down over her ear.

"She _doesn't_ ," Branch says, flatly, and he can't even believe he even has to come out and say that—she has _eyes_ , for hair's sake, and even her blind optimism has to have some sort of limit—but he eases himself down onto the table beside her, very slowly, because he's still got his roller skates on.

Down in the rink, the bouncy, upbeat song from before fades out for a new and softer number to flow in.

" _Though I've tried before to tell her of the feelings I have for her in my heart—"_

Oh. Great. Even the music is against him.

Poppy leans in all of a sudden—until he can smell her strawberry perfume and her cinnamon bubblegum, until he can count every freckle on her face, until her mouth is hardly half an inch from his— "You,” she says, softly, her breath hot on his neck, “are making an awful lot of assumptions there, buddy.” 

Literally every single thought in his head scrapes to a dead halt, and he can’t think and he can’t breathe, because is she—is she really saying—?

Is she saying what he thinks she is?

No, no, that's—that's crazy, that's _insane_ , he's got it wrong, he's got this all wrong, because she's Poppy, and he's Branch, which means she'll never love him, and it's as simple as that.

"And," she says, slow and steady, like she wants to be sure he hears her, “and _she’s_ assuming, too. She’s assuming that it’s her, and--and she really wants it to be true, because she really likes you.”

No, no, he has to be misreading this, he has to be misreading _her_ , the look on her face and the lilt in her voice, he has to be misreading, there has to be a—a vital wire that he didn't connect, a cog that he forgot to turn, because she can't mean—she _can't_ —

"But you're gonna have to let her know," she whispers, and under the flashing rainbow lights of the rink, her eyes sparkle and shine. "Because she's got no way to be sure if you don't let her know, and she—" Poppy drags in a deep breath, "—she really, _really_ doesn't want to mess things up with you."

_Oh._

A soft, shaky gasp tumbles off his lips, and he knows she can hear it—she can't _not_ hear it, she's too close for that, and he—

—wants to kiss her, wants to wrap his arm around her waist and pull her to his chest and kiss her breathless, kiss her until his mouth is numb, kiss her until she's all he can taste, kiss her until he forgets what it's like to _not_ be kissing her, but she's not asking him to kiss her, she's not asking him the question, she's asking _him_ to ask _her_ the question, and he—

—and he can do that.

"Okay," he whispers, and his heart bangs against his ribs so hard, it hurts, but he swallows down the knot of nerves in his throat and he keeps going, "okay, this is—this is me, letting her know."

He reaches for her hand—slowly, so she can pull away if she wants to, so she can say no if she wants to, but she doesn't pull away and she doesn't say no and now he's _holding her hand_ , and even if it turns out that he's wrong, that he really _is_ misreading this, that there _is_ a vital wire he didn't connect, this will still be the best moment of his entire life.

Poppy smiles, and it's like the sun, so bright he kind of forgets how to breathe, and then she throws her arms around his neck and—

—and she kisses him.

And it's—it's like the sun, too, it's like a hundred-thousand-million beams going off inside him, under his skin, lighting him up until he feels as bright and golden as _she_ is, and it's—it's like _firecrackers_ , bursting and exploding in his chest, in his throat, and he reaches to wrap his arm around her waist—slowly, so she can pull away if she wants to, so she can say no if she wants to, but she _doesn't_ , and he was wrong before, wasn't he, because _this_ is the best moment of his entire life—

Poppy pulls back, her eyes dancing, her smile so wide he can see the deep dimple in her left cheek. "And this is her," she whispers, soft and breathless, "saying _yes_."

(Ten minutes later, when she pulls him out of the rink and into the open streets of Bergentown, he glances, on impulse, back over his shoulder, to see Andre in the window, tucked up in a corner booth with a teenage Bergen girl, their hands clasped on the table.)

**Author's Note:**

> started writing this. had a breakdown. bon appetit. BAH i don't know if i like this even a little bit but it's what i spat out for v day, so make of it what you will


End file.
